Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2008 November 8

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November 8

NY Drug Case Law.

Hello. I remember reading a while ago about a NY State Law case, but I can't seem to find the case reference anymore. I hope someone can remind me. Here's the details I remember.

As a result of Rockefeller's draconian drug laws, an upwardly mobile high school girl faced 20 years for "transfering" drugs when she gave her boyfriend a joint. The judge decided to translate transfering as sale, and so the girl narrowly escaped facing pretty severe penalties for a small amount of drugs. As a result, a generation of judges were able to do the same. This would have been well more than 20 years ago.

It was in my case law book, which I've since sold, and now I'd like to use it in a paper. Anyone can help me? Thanks. Llamabr (talk) 00:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I took a look on Lexis using various searches and sorry I couldn't find it. However, though I'm not sure what you're going for exactly in your paper, you might find some of the following cases I found using a tarrgeted search on point: Carmona v. Ward, 576 F.2d 405 (2^nd cir. 1977); People v. Thompson, 83 N.Y.2d 477 (1994); People v. Broadie, 37 N.Y.2d 100 (1975).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I couldn't find it in lexis either, so I was just hoping this would jog someone's memory. Thanks for your help, so far. Llamabr (talk) 00:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I recall reading about this case, probably in the New York Times. I suggest a search of the NYT's archives. Also, if Lexis/Nexis and WestLaw don't show anything, perhaps a Google search of NY newspapers will retrieve some news articles. It is weird that Lexis/Nexis shows nothing.75Janice (talk) 01:04, 8 November 2008 (UTC)75Janice

I suspect that I have some detail wrong, which is why I can't find it. That's why I was hoping to job a wiki reference desker's memory. You guys know everything. Llamabr (talk) 01:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Not asking for legal advice!

Over at another reference desk question, the FTC's methods came up. In short, if advertising fails to meet legal expectations, the FTC initially takes some sort of action. Is this a "warning letter" type action or is it a binding administrative authority? They obviously have the power to invoke civil prosecutions of some sort, but what do they do before it gets to that? SDY (talk) 02:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

And the FTC is what and where? ៛ Bielle (talk) 04:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

In the context of the original thread, the US Federal Trade Commission. --Anon, 07:22 UTC, November 8, 2008.

See False advertising#False advertising regulations in the United States. -- kainaw™ 19:17, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Madras Presidency

I am working to expand an article on the Madras Presidency. But I don't have enough statistical information. I need stats of different religious denominations, different languages and their speakers, number of buses, bus depots and operators, kilometres of roads and railways, the length of telegraph lines, the number of post offices and telephones in the Madras Presidency in the year 1947 when India became independent.

I also need districtwise census details for the Madras Presidency for the period 1911 to 1941. Could someone suggest an online or offline source for the same? Thanks-Ravichandar_{My coffee shop} 04:19, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Surname

Are there any real people with the surname Švejk? Does the surname mean anything? Vltava 68 (talk contribs) 07:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The discussion here: [1] suggests it originates from the German surname, Schweik. Unfortunately there aren't any citations in this online discussion. Again, a search at a website called ancestry.com (here: [2]) returns a few results for people of that name (actually, not exactly, it returns svejk and not Švejk, if it makes any difference: I'm not too much of a czech speaker). I can't gurantee the credibility of the results, however.Leif edling (talk) 12:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

This [3] (a dictionary of German names from 1914) says that the surname (and quite a few similar ones) is a derivative of the Gothic word swinÞs, having meant "strong and fast" (presumably related to "swift" in English). The current German word "geschwind" (fast, colloquial) is also based on it. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Love worth the pain? (a reading list)

Why should one love when love inevitably brings pain, either through death/separation or else fear of these? Obviously this is an age old question. Fellow Wikipedians, could you please recommend some works of literature, philosophy, film, or other art which deal directly with this issue and argues one side or another? Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 08:38, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Because... it's unavoidable? It's part of the human condition, that attachment and separation are part of the rhythm of life? If we approach it as stages of personal development, we might say (after) it makes us wiser, stronger, more experienced, braver. How we relate to it reveals who we are. For origins of the impulse to attach, there's always Freud, and anything with obsession/love and death themes (Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain; the Sid and Nancy film). I went to the article unrequited love for starters – suggested reading Love in the Time of Cholera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame – where there's a column of wikiproject Love topics, but nothing quite along the lines of "why should one love when [it] brings pain". It's such a big question, one could have a panic attack in the face of it. I'm off to think more about it now, Julia Rossi (talk) 09:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I think a Buddhist would disagree. Four Noble Truths :) --S.dedalus (talk) 19:40, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

For a painting there's Edvard Munch's Dance of Life. Julia Rossi (talk) 10:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Woody Allen's Annie Hall deals with exactly this question. Woody does a cameo introduction and outroduction in which he talks about the problem using cheesy jokes. His conclusion is that we keep on because we "need the eggs", you'll have to watch the film to see what that means. 163.1.148.158 (talk) 12:50, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Because it matters, and it doesn't matter. Try The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 24.30.29.24 (talk) 14:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Let's say you're stranded on the cold, cold desolate island that had been a military base. There is more food than you can eat in your lifetime, entertainment, etc, but unfortunately, only fifty years worth of firewood, and no way to extend the store. Should you not use the firewood, because it will run out eventually, and then you will have only the memory? Nonesense: you will eventually die anyway, why live fifty of those years chilled to the bone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.124.214.224 (talk) 14:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

What's your problem with possibly having some pain? 'I spent the day avoiding pain' - is that really how you would like to describe even a single day of your life? Dmcq (talk) 15:56, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Except that Buddhism argues for exactly that as far as I understand it. --S.dedalus (talk) 19:46, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

How about using the 50 years-worth wood to build something to get off the fucking island and see your true love? Mac Davis (talk) 23:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

It would be far more difficult (maybe even impossible) to mention any work of art which does not deal with love. I guess you could read / watch / listen to almost anything from classics to pulp. As a balance to the answers above I suggest King Lear and some of the bleaker insights of Samuel Becket. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Very true, but I’m looking for works that specifically address this problem. --S.dedalus (talk) 19:46, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Since you bring in the buddhist position (non-attachment and the problem of desire), then maybe Mark Rothko speaks volumes for you. However, the passive positioning of buddhism is met with a nice foil (eg the death drive) because possibly to define itself, it requires the contrast of samsara/maya which it may be argued, projects it's opposite (nirvana). Q: What is yin without yang? A: no eggs.  :) Julia Rossi (talk) 21:44, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey man, where did the buddhist bit come into it? – it wasn't in your question. Julia Rossi (talk) 09:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Buddhism seems to be one of the few proponents of avoidance of pain through non-attachment. Thanks for the excellent answers! --S.dedalus (talk) 19:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

On the side of the value of love, Amelie (Le Destin Fabuleuse de Amelie Poulain) is a lovely example. See also Simon and Garfunkel's I Am A Rock, this quote from Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Kindly Ones. Steewi (talk) 11:13, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a huge and powerful question, and one can find interpretations and answers in the scriptures of many religious traditions. Personally, I like reading Dante's Divine Comedy as addressing this question: only by loving, and risking or experiencing the pain of loss, can one attain the Ultimate. Only by having loved Beatrice, and experiencing her death (in 1290, when he was 25), was Dante able to attain salvation, which is his case was his vision, while yet alive, of Paradiso. The heresy of including Beatrice in a work about God and Heaven and Hell has not escaped centuries of commentators, and is an example of what Harold Bloom called the essential canonical "strangeness" of all great masterpieces. (In Dante she is second only to Jesus Christ in the Christian hierarchy -- it's pretty amazing when you think about it. Bloom calls it "sublimely outrageous.") If you haven't read Dante, do. Antandrus (talk) 00:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Oldest Roman Arch

What is the oldest survivng roman arch?

According to one website I looked on, the first arch the romans built was in around 200BC, which has since been destroyed. It looks like the survivng arch of the Pons Aemilius is the oldest, having been built in 142BC, but the article on this says that it was restored in 12BC, so is it really the same arch? In the list of Roman aquaducts the earliest listed to be supported on arches is the Aqua Appia, which was built in 312BC, significantly before the supposedly first ever roman arch. And I might even be missing others that I haven't found out about yet.

So, does anyone out there know the answer to this?

148.197.114.207 (talk) 14:15, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

This [4] site claims that the Arch of Augustus - Rimini, Italy is the oldest, having been built in 27 BCE. This [5] has a photo of the Gate of Jupiter in Falerii Novi (same picture in colour) dated after 241 BCE. Further back, there is the Porta Rosa in Velia / Elea from around 350 BCE.

As to the Aqua Appia: Most of it is underground and only a short stretch in the vicinity of the Porta Capena (the gate to the Appian Way) is raised on arches. It was also extensively repaired around 145 BCE. The original substructure may have long disappeared.

As the Romans pinched the idea of the arch from the Etruscans, it may be impossible to determine what is the oldest "original" Roman arch. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

According to Banister Fletcher, the oldest "true arch" remaining in Rome dates from the 4th century BCE and is over drain in front of the Temple of Saturn. A similar one known as the Cloaca Maxima has been altered and filled in. They might be considered as Etruscan rather than Roman. It can be hard to draw a clear line, as some architecture of the early Roman period has Etruscan details, for example the Arch of Augustus in Perugia, 2nd century BCE. Amandajm (talk) 11:50, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

There may be a particular arch in the Cloaca Maxima you were thinking of but the thing itsef is a sewer system and still in use (not filled in). Rmhermen (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Leap years and bachelors

I found the image of a post card on the right on Commons. Could someone please explain to me why leap years would be "unsafe" for bachelors? --Kr-val (talk) 14:20, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

As the article points out, ... it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years. My Swedish is too minimal to know if the reason for the image´s title is given in the text. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that would seem to be the reason. The article shows these two rather misogynist postcards, which would confirm the theory. Belisarius (talk) 18:02, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

The appropriate way for the "poor batchelor" to decline form marrying a woman who proposed to him was to buy her a pair of white gloves. I know, because my Grandmother told me, and she was born in the 19th century. Amandajm (talk) 11:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

When religions 'borrow' ideas from earlier religions

Is there a word for this? Like how Christianity seems to have assimilated some themes/motifs/dates from Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology. Probably transomethingorother. I swear there is a word, but can't remember or find it through copious amounts of googling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.45.40 (talk) 20:17, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism  ??--Digrpat (talk) 21:08, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Historical congressional district maps

Is there anywhere online where you can see historical congressional district maps for US states? I've only been able to find examples quite sporadically. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 20:56, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

famous soldiers before Napoleon

Hello. I am wondering who would be well-known as a famous soldier (in a pop culture sort of sense) in England about 1800. I don't mean a contemporary, but someone from the past. In the same sense that say 50-100 years after Napoleon, he'd be famous enough that people would say things like "a modern Napoleon" or "the Napoleon of crime". Was there a towering popular figure from a war a generation or two earlier? Thank you very much. 64.228.90.86 (talk) 20:59, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington is the most important one I can think of. In terms of War in general, Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson would be another. PeterSymonds (talk) 21:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth? George Monck? Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 22:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Everyone would have had their opinion of Oliver Cromwell (the Irish would say "the curse of Cromwell upon you", such was he hated there). The Duke of Marlborough would have been famous for defeating the French at Blenheim in the early eighteenth century (the closest I can think of to two generations earlier). 1800 was in the middle of "The Great Terror" of 1797-1805, during which France threatened invasion: the popular literature of the time often invoked meadieval soldiers such as Edward III, Edward, the Black Prince, and Henry V in their battles against the French. But I think Cromwell is the closest you can get to a Napoleon-like figure.--Johnbull (talk) 22:52, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, that was very helpful. It didn't need to be two generations particularly - the medieval kings in the popular literature sound like the closest to what I was getting at. Thank you everyone. 64.228.90.86 (talk) 02:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget Clive of India. Rmhermen (talk) 21:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)